Changed on 21 August 2026. The National Horticulture Board revised its rate of assistance to 35% in general areas and 45% in the North Eastern and Himalayan States, Scheduled Areas and specified Union Territories. Cold storage subsidy is now capped at ₹2.00 crore per project, the cost of land no longer counts as eligible project cost, and only one member of a family may ever claim. Fresh applications have also been paused since 4 September 2026. What changed, in full.
Read this first: the NHB figures on this page come from Annexure VI of the MIDH Operational Guidelines, April 2025, which is headed “National Horticulture Board: proposed changes in components and cost norms”. They are recorded here as written. Confirm the operative position with the National Horticulture Board before spending money.
This is the component most people mean when they say “NHB subsidy”. It supports a whole horticulture project rather than a single item.
Two project sizes
| Component | Area | Cost | Assistance in general areas |
|---|---|---|---|
| Commercial horticulture development in open field conditions | Over 2 hectares | ₹100.00 lakh per project | 35%, credit-linked back-ended |
| Large-scale hi-tech open field cultivation of identified high-value crops | Over 20 hectares | ₹200.00 lakh per project | 35%, credit-linked back-ended |
The hi-tech category is limited to six named crops: apple, walnut, almond, cashew nut, kiwi and date palm.
What the project may include
An integrated project may cover planting material, plantation, irrigation, fertigation, mechanisation, precision farming and good agricultural practices. The individual items are costed against MIDH crop-wise and component-wise norms on a pro-rata basis, which is why the NHM cost norms still matter even inside an NHB project.
Add-on components
Where MIDH cost norms do not cover something, Annexure VI provides its own norms:
- Land — removed on 21 August 2026. The cost of land is no longer part of eligible project cost. Until that circular it was admissible if newly purchased and not before one year from the date of loan sanction, at actual cost or up to 10% of the eligible project cost excluding land, whichever was less, capped at ₹60,000 per acre. That is the figure much older material still quotes, so it is left here with its date rather than deleted.
- Land development. Levelling, digging of pits, fencing and gates. Actual or up to 15% of eligible project cost excluding land, whichever is less, capped at ₹60,000 per acre.
- Cultivation expenses. Planting material and inputs, as per MIDH and NHM norms on a pro-rata basis.
- Drip system. Actual cost or ₹24,000 per acre.
Credit-linked means a bank comes first
Assistance is back-ended and tied to project financing. Without a sanctioned loan there is no route for the subsidy, and the money is settled after the project is completed and verified, not at the start.
